Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

The team behind Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII deserves some kind of medal – Square-Enix went above and beyond the call of duty to fill their game with so much more dignity than was actually necessary for a story about cool dudes with big swords and great hair. The battle system is snappy and direct, the cut-scenes are heavy and quick, and the graphics are crisper than anything on PlayStation 2 (though maybe that’s because you’re holding the screen in the palm of your hand).

As the flagship title at the launch of the redesigned slim and lite PSP, Crisis Core also sold fabulously well, and carried the PSP into a several-weeks-long stint at the top of the console sales charts, triumphing over the DS. (Though maybe that was just because everyone owned a DS already.)

9. The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo DS, Nintendo)

After nearly a decade of Zelda games failing to set Japan on fire, series director Eiji Aonuma faced the difficult task of making the series relevant again in its native land. Phantom Hourglass attacked the “genre” of Zelda; it stripped away much of the plodding and collectionism, it focused its controls entirely on the DS stylus, and it based its puzzles on common sense rather than “Zelda Logic” (killing all the enemies results in a door unlocking, as does lighting all the torches in a room). In short, it pulled Zelda away from the classification of “videogame” and closer to “entertainment.” With over a half-million sales in Japan, it’s safe to say Phantom Hourglass is a success. The next challenge for Aonuma should be in keeping games of this calibre coming regularly. I personally would love to see one little DS adventure a year from Link.

8. Armodyne (PlayStation 2, Sony Computer Entertainment (Omiya Soft))

One of the more under-the-radar titles of the year, Armodyne mixes the bones of real-time strategy with the brains of Advance-Wars-esque mathematic precision. It's easily one of the more interesting strategy-RPGs ever made -- instead of telling your units where to move or who to attack, you give them a rough objective and then tell them how you would like them to act: assign a repair unit to an area where a heated firefight is going down, and issue the "defensive" command -- the healer will avoid attacks while, each round, repairing whichever nearby unit needs it the most. Have one unit pursue a fleeing enemy "defensively" as a diversion while another, slower unit approaches "aggressively". This set-up creates a sparkling, organic flow to the large-scale battle maps. With peculiarly high production values added to the mix and a surprisingly unique mecha and character customization system, it's a wonder this rock-solid gem didn't take off.

Acquire is a developer known for a strong heritage in ninja games – they created the Tenchu, Way of the Samurai, and Shinobido franchises. Its latest game, for PSP, is a bit of a head-scratcher. The title means roughly “They’re Audacious Even for Heroes.” It’s kind of an RPG, kind of a real-time strategy game, kind of a dungeon-building game, and kind of a puzzle game. Whatever it is, it’s 100 percent amazing, and it came completely out of left-field to earn a tantalizing score of 10, 8, 8, 10 from Weekly Famitsu.

Basically, you play as a demon lord’s apprentice. Your goal is to make the caverns twisty enough and full enough of monsters to stop the heroes before they can reach the demon lord. Killing pesky adventurers just feels awesome. And to top it all off, the game features plenty of actually hilarious parody of RPG stereotypes.

In recent years, Grasshopper Manufacture’s Goichi Suda has been looking to the broad scope and ambition of Western games like Grand Theft Auto, and the inspiration is evident in No More Heroes’ fictional city of Santa Destroy. The quirky little story is definitely something you wouldn’t see in GTA—a man wins a laser sword in an Internet auction, decides to use it to challenge a local professional killer to a duel, and ends up roped into a kind of pyramid scheme wherein he has to defeat the ten best killers in America. The graphical style is Grasshopper’s trademark sophisticated cel-shading, and Masafumi Takada’s musical score is an electric, eclectic, perfect mix of rhythm, bass, and noise. The game structure is GTA-loose when it wants to be and Megaman-sharp when it has to be. And for the first time, shaking the Wii remote in a game – and violently, to charge up your sword’s batteries – is so hilarious that it’s actually fun.

5. Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360, Microsoft (Mistwalker / FeelPlus)

Hironobu Sakaguchi’s Lost Odyssey is a loaded pistol pointing (perhaps in jest) right between Final Fantasy’s eyes. It’s been touted over and over again that the story in this game is penned by an actual literary novelist (Kiyoshi Shigematsu), though you really can’t appreciate just how amazing that is until you’re right there in the thick of the game. The character designs by a world-renowned genius comic artist (Takehiko Inoue) are unique enough to grab your attention and the voice direction is superb.

It’s hard to say whether Lost Odyssey will find more or less success abroad than at home – the Western gaming press’s rejection of Blue Dragon, Mistwalker’s first game, might not have left the best impression on the loads of people who don’t realize that Lost Odyssey was Mistwalker’s main project. Time will tell if Sakaguchi has a new Final Fantasy on his hands.

4. Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo Wii, Nintendo)

For Super Mario Galaxy, Nintendo obviously wanted to create a cultural event on par with the original Super Mario Bros. And while just about nothing about Super Mario Galaxy’s presentation (in short: very talky) is as instantly infectious and hummable as the original Super Mario Bros.’s theme music, it’s definitely a game with metric tons of heart, scope, and overall game design wonder. Like Super Mario 64 before it, Super Mario Galaxy will no doubt inspire dozens of game developers for years to come, which is both a good thing for game developers and a wonderful thing for gamers.

I’m of the humble opinion that there’s just plain too much genius in Super Mario Galaxy; at parts it feels stretched thin, at parts it feels repressed by its unending need to do something new. Which is to say: if other game designers are going to mine a game for concepts, Super Mario Galaxy is probably the one game they could all pick and end up not looking like anyone’s copying anyone else.

In the first month of its release, it’s sold just over half a million copies. Will Super Mario Galaxy see a sequel in the next three years, or is it back to the drawing board for the team? It all depends on how long Super Mario Galaxy floats around the sales charts.

3. Wii Fit (Nintendo Wii, Nintendo)

Nintendo’s biggest release of the year (in terms of size), the most talked-about, and the one with the most potential to launch the Wii into cultural superstardom the way Brain Training promoted the Nintendo DS is Wii Fit, and as of the time of this writing, it’s been on Japanese store shelves for all of four days.

The news has yet to report any rioting or earthquakes directly related to the game’s release, and I’ve so far had no luck finding a sign outside a store proclaiming that they’re sold out of Wii Fit. But even the phenomenally successful Brain Training took several months before sales exploded.

Currently, review-writing customers on Amazon.co.jp are saying that the product has a cute enough presentation to probably keep them coming back once a day, though at the moment, it’s still too early to tell. The sales of this game depend on both Nintendo’s presentation prowess and the Japanese people’s will to keep exercising. In Tokyo, though, where the average citizen walks at least a mile a day, people tend to be a lot more fit than, say, a country where fast-food restaurants have drive-thrus (no offense; I could go for some Fatburger fries right about now). Do the people “need” to exercise over here? Do people feel bad enough about their imperfections to use Wii Fit every day, and then to tell their friends to use it? And will they see results?

The future for Wii Fit remains uncertain, though it sure as hell is going to be interesting to watch. And maybe someone will make a decent snowboarding game.

2. Professor Layton and the Curious Village (Nintendo DS, Level-5)

Level-5 certainly has the hardcore gamer’s attention with games like the action RPG Dark Cloud, the more mainstream Dragon Quest VIII and the upcoming White Knight Story. But what of the casual gamers? That’s where Professor Layton comes in. The hook is simple – you play the part of a detective-professor’s apprentice. You’re investigating a mystery in, as the title suggests, a Curious Village. Investigating the mystery involves literally hundreds of real-world-logic-based puzzles. They come relentlessly, one right after another. Your reward for completing one is a lovingly presented, gracefully short, irresistably cute cut-scene – and then another puzzle.

It might take you twenty minutes to solve one of the expertly-crafted puzzles alone, or it might take you two weeks. Either way, to consult a strategy guide would be terrible blasphemy.

If you complete the game, you probably won’t want to play any of the puzzles again. Even then, replay value is never a problem. This is because Level-5 understands the notion of quality – they’ve been delivering spectacularly on their promise to make new puzzles available every week after the title’s launch. And they’ve got a third game coming early next year – that raises the total number of puzzles to well over 6,000. Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma was quoted, in 2007, as saying that the goal of puzzle-crafting in a Zelda game is to make the player feel smart; I suppose that makes Layton better than Zelda, in that completing all these puzzles through your own hard work can actually make you smart.

1. Pac-Man Championship Edition (Xbox Live Arcade, Namco)

Pac-Man creator Tooru Iwatani never had any smashing success with any games aside from Pac-Man; nonetheless, as the one game designer Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto claims to respect above all others, he’s certainly earned his keep. He’s spent the last few years as a lecturer in various Japanese universities, and as of March of this year, he has officially retired from Namco to take up a post lecturing about game design at Tokyo Polytechnic University. He certainly didn’t leave quietly, though: Pac-Man Championship Edition is a bang of a statement. In an era capstoned by stop-and-pop shooters with normal maps and particle effects, it’s fitting and beautiful that a version of Pac-Man exclusive to the Xbox 360 is the best game of the year.

Namco had, for years, been issuing somewhat stingy compilations of their oldest games, filling CDs roughly 0.3 percent full with the likes of Mappy and Galaga, so when Microsoft announced that they were joining forces with Namco to bring a Pac-Man World Championship via Xbox Live, no one exactly had to throw their hands on top of their head to keep their hats from flying off. I personally wondered how a “championship” of a game can take place if there are several men in the world who are capable of playing that game absolutely perfectly. A championship wouldn’t be too much fun if you weren’t one of those guys – or even if you were.

What a shock it was that Pac-Man Championship Edition is, essentially, the perfect videogame. Championship Edition is undeniably Pac-Man, and it is undeniably perfect. Instead of eating all the dots on the maze to progress to the next stage, the maze continually reseeds itself, and organically changes, depending on how quickly and efficiently you manage to eat the dots. Tiny touches (like sparks when Pac-Man rounds corners, a thump of loving vibration whenever you eat a ghost, the pulsing, retro-arcade-invoking neon aesthetic) mingle with monster-huge game design hooks (it’s intensely satisfying to eat multiple ghosts in a row).

Some have complained about the game’s preset length of five minutes, and yearn for an endless mode. I say it’s perfectly fine as it is. It’s all about the score, anyway, and it’s enough of an achievement to simply survive. If you ask me, the only disappointment is the terrible default music track – probably the cheesiest techno music imaginable. I suppose this is why custom soundtracks were invented. Good thing you can still hear the delicious sound effects while listening to your own music.

Raph Koster once posed the following question to me: “Can we make a game about the taste of a peach?” Maybe not, but we can certainly make a game about entering a Zen state (as anyone who’s played flOw can attest to).

flOw starts off our countdown because I have no idea where to put it. I love the “game” but I’m not even sure if it’s fun.

Since I can’t decide if flOw is a genius revolution in gaming, the first of a totally new form of “interactive experience”, or just a near miss that fails to incorporate the experience it’s presenting into a game, I’ll let it round out the list at number ten. On a different day it would have been number one.

9. F’k That – Warhawk

It takes some serious balls of steel to stand in a room full of suits and say “you know that multi-million dollar console game you paid us to make…well we just cut single player,” but somebody did it for Warhawk.

Warhawk is not only one of the best (and not only because it is one of the only) exclusive PS3 titles, it’s also a harbinger of what’s to come. Warhawk represents console developers and the console audience becoming truly comfortable with the idea of connectivity. The fact that Warhawk was sold as a digital download as well as a retail product may well mark the blurring of the line between what most players consider “downloadable games” and “real games”.

For understanding that single player is no longer an essential part of the console experience, Warhawk clocks in solidly at number nine.

8. Reimagining the Controller – Assassin’s Creed

Love it or hate it, the Assassin’s Creed controller is something different, not only practically but conceptually. Thinking of the controller not as “an agglomeration of buttons that serve to convey mechanical commands” but rather as “an extension of the player’s very being” is a sea change.

You may ask “why is it such a leap, after all we’ve had the Wii for a year now?” It is a major leap because the Assassin’s Creed controller achieves what it does without forcing the player to mimic the motions of their character. This opens up a much wider field of satisfying play.

Did Ubisoft execute it perfectly? I’ll leave that for you to decide. In the meantime, I’ll applaud them for providing us with something rarely seen in the industry these days: a total conceptual shift.

7. Hook it to my Veins – Call of Duty 4

Want your MMO fix in tasty bite size morsels? Then Call of Duty 4 is the game for you. In Call of Duty 4 you get the satisfaction of a good grind with a sense of accomplishment in 15 minute intervals.

The first developer who can do this with Co-Op game play will walk away with a lot of cash…

6. Better than Duck Hunt – Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

“How can we make a good shooter on the console?”

This question has been asked a thousand times and been answered in a thousand ways but, until now, the answer has never seemed to satisfy. This is largely due to the fact that when people ask “How do we make a good shooter on a console” what they really mean is “how do we make a shooter that feels as quick and responsive as a PC shooter on the console.”

Apparently the answer is the Wii mote. I was blown away by this fact. Nintendo had always been the “family friendly” console to me so I didn’t consider the FPS ramifications of the Wiimote but clearly it’s the best tool for the job. With some tweaking and some refinement down the line I could see the Wii (or a console with Wii like controls) becoming the platform of choice for hardcore FPSers, even over the PC. If this does become the case it will owe it all to Metroid Prime 3.

5. Second Genesis? - EvE Online: Trinity

There are only two reasons why successful MMOs die out: either they become too complicated – and thus become inaccessible to new users – or they just start to look dated. CCP, the creators of EvE-Online have figured out a solution to the second problem, patch in a new graphics engine.

While this may not seem like a design innovation, it opens up an important new possibility for gaming: the perpetual game. There is no reason why, if you are willing to give away major technological overhauls, you can’t create a world that lasts for decades, perhaps centuries.

Imagine having thirty years development time. Imagine what a world could be like after a quarter century of additional content and art. Imagine a living world filled not only with myth cycles and lore but history!

For letting us dream EvE earns its place at number five.

4. *Oh My Jesus God* – Line Rider

As a game designer there are some games that just make you want to weep…the simplicity, the elegance, the grace: why didn’t you think of that. Line rider was one of those games. The first time I saw it I thought to myself “I could make forty beautiful games out of this”. The first time I played it I thought to myself “this is a beautiful game”.

When I last checked there were more Line Rider videos on YouTube than Gears of War. To put that popularity in perspective let me just say this: making line rider cost less than buying a retail copy of Gears and I can tell you all of the rules of Line Rider in under a minute...

It’s simple toys like this that serve to remind us that all the mechanics have not been found, that there are still activities which are engaging and fun that don’t require a multi-million dollar budget to execute, and that’s why line rider earns it’s place on our list.

3. Reinventing the Wheel – Mass Effect

I can’t remember the last time I saw a dialogue tree in a major release game...but you know what I can remember? I can remember having a conversation with a group of game designers who said that dialogue trees were dead, that a modern audience wouldn’t sit through that amount of reading. Bioware blew this line of reasoning out of the water with the dialogue wheel in Mass Effect.

Moreover they did it on a console...

The dialogue wheel not only allows players to quickly assimilate their choices but also adds an intriguing uncertainty to the game play. The wheel allows the player to choose the tenor of their responses but not the responses themselves. Surprisingly this leads to a feeling of greater choice rather than a restrictive gimmick thus earning Mass Effect its place at number three.

2. Not Just for Your Grandma Anymore - Puzzle Quest

Puzzle games hold my attention for all of twenty minutes. Once I figure out the core mechanics I’m usually pretty done...

I’ve played at least 150 hours of Puzzle Quest.

Puzzle Quest deserves to be on the top ten most innovative games of 2007 for a myriad of reasons. First off it combined puzzle games and rpgs. That in and of itself would deserve a mention, but Puzzle Quest did so much more. It successfully bridged the gap between casual and hardcore players. Most of the attempts I’ve seen try to do this by separating out the “hardcore game” and the “casual game” and simply package them together in the same application, not so with Puzzle Quest. In Puzzle Quest it all depends on how you play. If you are the type of player who just cares about doing a neat puzzle every once in a while the game certainly has that, but if you are the type of player who wants to Min/Max your 1337 skziills and see how much you could pwn, well that was there too…in the exact same activity the casual player was doing!

Moreover, Puzzle Quest finds unique answers for several questions which have plagued the design community for years. Most obvious: how do we make combat in an RPG fun? Puzzle Quest managed to avoid stale menu based combat without blundering into the “action-rpg” brier. Also, like the next title on the list, Puzzle Quest demonstrates how much you can do with a single play mechanic, creating a crafting, taming, capturing and training system all out of the same color matching rule set.

I hope you all ended this year with a new found respect for bejeweled...

1. Sine Qua Non – Portal

Portal takes the cake.

What else can I say? It reminded me why I design games. It’s simple, it’s beautiful, it’s elegant. All the touches are just right. More than that, it’s innovative, it allowed us to step into a new gamespace, to play with a mechanic that’s never before been done. Who knows if we’ll see this mechanic used again (probably not to this extent) but it doesn’t matter, they pushed the mechanic to the limit. The game itself was just a deep exploration of the mechanic. It gently unfolded all of the ramifications of the rules, ushered the player through a complete examination of the emergent properties of the ruleset and forced them to think in a new way. Thus to me it is the designer’s game of the year and the most refreshing piece of gaming I’ve experienced in a long time.

Of course none of those things are why it’s on this list. Actually the reason it’s on the list has almost nothing directly to do with design. Portal is actually on this list because Valve hired the entire team that made Narbacular Drop.

Allowing students to innovate and incubate in the safe environment of school and then, if their ideas have exceptional potential, to provide them with the guidance and resources necessary to fully realize their vision is something that I believe will revitalize game design. My hat’s off to you Valve for your bravery and your forward thinking. You well deserve this year’s Greatest Innovation Award.

While it may verge on the over-complex in some gameplay mechanics, BioWare's masterful Mass Effect feels like a genuine space opera. It has whirling emotions and a genuine story arc - so genuine, in fact, that you start to realize how basic the story in many other games is.

In addition, the character customization using Unreal Engine 3 made players even more acutely aware of their immersion in the action. And with fruits from Dragon Age to the 'mysterious' MMO still due under new taskmaster Electronic Arts, one can't help but think that the golden age of BioWare's story-driven epics has only just begun.

4. Bungie (Halo 3)

Some cynics might say that Bungie not being #1 on this list means that they've failed, given the stratospheric expectations for Halo 3. Well, hardly - the single-player game was still rapturously received. But where the newly independent developer scored, for me, was in the multiplayer immersiveness.

With social networks ravenously engulfing the rest of electronic media, the incredibly complex stat tracking and multimedia upload capabilities of Halo 3's online modes make for a world in which tracking and replaying your interactions mean as much as the gameplay itself. Games still have a long way to go on their path to social media, and Bungie blazed the trail in 2007, while quietly setting up as independent of Microsoft.

3. 2K Boston/Australia (BioShock)

Of course, the team we'd all love to call Irrational always knew that BioShock was a critical darling, but to break out to commercial success - and with such a relatively odd, highbrow setting - was a surprise to many.

But Ken Levine's team took their time and presented a carefully structured game world where morals mattered, dynamic and emergent gameplay was rife, and Daddies were Big. It may already be a 'franchise', but as an original piece of art, BioShock rocks, and 2K Boston should be proud of the iteration and perseverance in birthing it. [UPDATE: Jay Kyburz notes in comments that 2K Australia should also be honored for its role in co-developing the game. Agreed - now they are.]
2. Harmonix (Rock Band/Phase)

When a developer thrives after its signature franchise has been taken away from them - that's when you know they're destined for greatness. And Boston's Harmonix did just that with Rock Band, possibly the best multiplayer game of all time - while sneaking in officially overlooked iPod breakthrough title Phase along the way.

It's not just the pure technical execution, either. In the innards of Rock Band, you can feel the love of rock music screaming out to be heard from the developer, something that's widely agreed to be somewhat lacking in Neversoft's still competent Guitar Hero III. It's a game that makes you feel - and most often, that feeling is great. Bravo, Harmonix.
1. Valve Software (The Orange Box)

Sure, plenty of other developers shipped a great game this year. But, let's face it, how many of those developers shipped three great titles all in one year, while simultaneously owning and operating a major PC game distribution portal?

Thanks to the puzzle humor genius of Portal, the beautifully art-directed multiplayer smartness of Team Fortress 2, and the pitch-perfect storytelling and humanistic drama of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, all packaged up neatly in The Orange Box, Valve deserves Gamasutra's award for the 2007 Developer Of The Year. (Mind you, expect a Halley's Comet-style gap until they next release this many titles in 12 months!)

Posts

This one almost completely blindsided us. What more could’ve been done with Pac-Man, and why should anyone care about a a game that's a direct descendent of its low-fi 1980 arcade forebear? Pac-Man CE answers this simply by adding a time limit and changing the way level progression works. Elegant in its simplicity, the new formula works to great effect. Twenty-seven years after Pac-Man’s introduction, creator Tooru Iwatani managed to show that the real Pac-Man—not the one that runs around 3D worlds or drives go-karts—is still the man.

World of Warcraft’s first expansion was a critical and commercial smash, and we had little reason to expect anything othewise. Hordes of gamers snatched up The Burning Crusade when it launched in January—2.4 million of them. On day one. The game upped the level cap to 70 and added gorgeous new environments helping drive the user base of the game over 1 million players throughout the course of 2007 to over 9.3 million. We can hardly imagine the kind of impact that the upcoming expansion Wrath of the Lich King will have on the international games industry.

8. God of War II—PS2
SCEA
3/13/07

In March this year, amidst all of the “next-generation” hype, God of War II released on the incomparable old timer, PS2. And Kratos’ latest managed to mercilessly beat down many of the so-called next-generation action games that released in 2007. God of War II improves upon 2005’s God of War in every conceivable way, adding more bosses, more mind-sharpening puzzles and more sheer brutality. Being near-perfect, it will appropriately be remembered as the last great game for PS2.

7. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass—DS
Nintendo
10/1/07

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is actually the first Zelda game for the three-year-old Nintendo DS. Now that it has finally arrived, most everyone can agree that this sequel to the GameCube’s Wind Waker was worth the wait. Intuitive controls, endearing cartoonish graphics and an engrossing adventure make Phantom Hourglass a must for Zelda fans and one of the best entry points for newcomers to the classic series.

The Call of Duty series is back in top form with Infinity Ward at the helm. Call of Duty 4’s single-player story mode is very short, but plenty of surprises and razor-edge execution more than make up for the length. As excellent as the single player mode is, it’s the multiplayer that’s the main draw here. A compelling class system and a groundbreaking reward system for consecutive kills (two consecutive kills improves radar capabilities, five-kills lets you call in an air-strike, etc.) will keep the 2 million Americans that have bought this game so far coming back again and again. Oh, and the graphics are some of the best you’ll find on consoles.

5. Halo 3—Xbox 360
Microsoft, Bungie
9/25/07

It’s pretty rare that any sort of trilogy can maintain a high level of quality throughout all three entries, but Bungie pulled it off in 2007 with the release of Halo 3. Gameplay is tighter than ever and the white-knuckle multiplayer modes are plentiful. The Forge and Save Films features push console shooters to new heights and integration with Bungie.net fosters an already strong community. Four-player online co-op for the campaign mode turns out to be one of the best multiplayer experiences around. And the game’s story is a satisfying culmination of all of the Halo mythology that has been expressed in everything from books to graphic novels, and of course, Halo 1 and 2. Hands-down, the best game in the series, which says a lot. $300 million in global week-one sales prove that Master Chief's draw is as powerful as ever.

We’re kind of glad that Valve and EA decided to put all of these great games in one package, not only because it’s likely the best deal in gaming right now, but also so we have an excuse to wedge all of these top-tier games into one slot. Everyone knows that 2004’s Half-Life 2 is one of the best examples of the FPS genre, and 2006’s Episode One was icing on the cake. New, though, is the raucous Team Fortress 2, with its comically gory style and gameplay that expertly adheres to the playing style of virtually anyone. And then there’s Portal, a mind-bending game that took the portal mechanics used in 2006’s Prey to entirely new levels. And Half-Life 2: Episode Two is the best entry into the saga yet. We’re not sure how this package could possibly be any better outside of including a free functional Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device with every purchase.

3. BioShock—PC, Xbox 360
2K Games, 2K Boston
8/21/07

BioShock would be prime material for a videogame lit. course. It’s inspired by the work of writer and philosopher Ayn Rand and explores ideas surrounding ethics, politics, metaphysics, genetics and perhaps one or two more ‘ics. This is a game whose events you almost want transcribed on paper so that you can examine at leisure the various intertwining themes that are presented in-game through vehicles like the Big Daddy, Little Sisters, Adam, plasmids and splicers. And there are tons of tape recordings strewn about the watery tomb called Rapture that dot its hyper-atmospheric hallways, nearly all of which are worth listening to. But don’t get us wrong—this is a shooter, and an innovative one at that, encouraging players to experiment with different killing tactics. BioShock contains the best examples of emergent gameplay this year. Look beyond the nearly flawless gameplay execution and you’ll realize that the themes explored in BioShock are perhaps more interesting than the game itself. Color us thrilled that the game sold well enough to warrant a sequel.

2. Rock Band—Xbox 360, PS3, PS2
MTV Games, EA, Harmonix
11/20/07

We were hard-pressed to think of any games that we had more fun with in 2007 than Rock Band. This game is inherently social and hands-down the best multiplayer experience this year. It’s also a supremely addictive game that is completely accessible where it wants to be and tough as all hell if you’re into digital masochism. Thinking back on Rock Band, we’re kind of surprised that it took this long for someone to combine all of these instruments into one cohesive package. But we’re exceedingly grateful that the musical mavericks at Harmonix were the ones to take the initiative and create a game that we’ll continue to play into the wee hours of the morning for many sessions to come.

1. Super Mario Galaxy—Wii
Nintendo
12/12/07

It’s hard to describe the sheer joy that Super Mario Galaxy elicits. At times, this game plays the player. It plays with your sense of direction, your sense of space and your sense of what’s possible in this narrow genre that we define as “platforming.” But Super Mario Galaxy flies in the face of preconceived notions. While the game gifts the player with a wide spectrum of advancements and fresh concepts, it remains remarkably accessible. Don’t be mistaken by that accessibility though, because there is ample challenge for more avid players. It’s a high water mark for videogame design and a shining example of what this medium is capable of, which is why it’s Next-Gen’s 2007 Game of the Year.

Post-Christmas releases aren't often this good, but Crackdown (Xbox 360) started 2007 off right by blending Grand Theft Auto with Super Mario. As a riot cop outfitted with the future's most awesome jumping technology, you leap from building to building collecting items that let you ... jump even higher. The resultant carrot-and-stick gameplay leaves us absolutely addicted.

9. Desktop Tower Defense — Best Flash Game
Build a maze of missile platforms, water cannons and other hazards to trap and destroy a parade of miniature monsters that crawl across your screen. Then race to upgrade them as the critter attacks become increasingly fierce. If too many escape the desktop deathtrap, it's game over. And the designer's not done: Version 1.5 adds even more challenges.

8. Crysis — Best Possibilities
We aren't graphics whores. So it wasn't Crysis' stunning lighting effects and realistic vegetation that sucked us in. It's the way the wide-open landscape, with its unprecedented responsiveness to player actions, expands the possibility space. And the way the different powers of your nanosuit open up an even more dizzying array of gameplay options. Is "emergentlicious" a word? Because that's what Crysis (PC) is.

7. Call of Duty 4 — Best Sequel to a Popular Shooter
Sorry, Master Chief; sorry, Samus. Call of Duty 4 (PC, 360, PS3) takes the shooter crown from you both. Exceptionally smart AI on both sides of the fight ups the intensity of the single-player campaign, while freeing us from having to baby-sit our squadmates. The brilliant multiplayer mode turned us into CoD4 addicts, assembling custom blends of weapons and skills.

6. Mass Effect — Best Role-Playing Game
Yes, Mass Effect (360) suffers from an ungainly inventory system and combat that could charitably be described as "awkward." But its story and characters are so absorbing that we're more than happy to forgive its flaws. The innovative branching dialogue system gets us looking forward to long-winded conversations with characters instead of dreading them.

5. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass — Best Reinvention of the Wheel
The Zelda series already worked perfectly, but Nintendo never sleeps. Phantom Hourglass (DS) is controlled entirely using the touch screen, which brings a remarkably different feel to the decades-old formula. Throwing a boomerang by drawing the path we want it to take never gets old.

4. The Orange Box — Best Value and Best Cake
When you're getting five games for $60, it's almost a waste of money not buying The Orange Box (360, PS3, PC). While the main draws were supposed to be the sequels to Half-Life and Team Fortress, we actually are more in love with Portal, which delivers that rare combination of innovative gameplay and hilarious, polished story line.

3. BioShock — Best Game About Ayn Rand
As a first-person shooter, BioShock (360) is OK. As an example of how to craft a compelling videogame story, it is priceless. Whether by the sociopolitical questions about objectivism and free will or the heartbreaking relationships of the Little Sisters and Big Daddies, BioShock's world has us fully immersed. The gorgeous art and level design doesn't hurt.
2. Super Mario Galaxy — Best Universe in a Box
Shigeru Miyamoto has forgotten more about videogames than most other designers know, and the mind-boggling variety of Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) is proof. Whether bunny-hopping across pools of lava collecting coins, surfing on a giant manta ray, balancing on a ball or throwing turtle shells at a giant undead fish, there's more gameplay here than in 10 average games.

1. Rock Band — Game of the Year
Sure, Guitar Hero is going to sell more copies this Christmas, but Rock Band (360, PS3, PS2) is the true evolution of music games. Adding in drums and vocals to the guitar-based rock gameplay creates a collaborative, immersive and just plain addictive experience far greater than the sum of its parts. We've seen, with our own eyes, Guitar Hero haters get drawn into Rock Band. It's magic.

What begins as a plane crash over the mid-Atlantic quickly transforms into a chilling fight for survival in Rapture. The ruined underwater objectivist utopia is simultaneously beautiful and violent, forcing you to alter your genetic code in order to take on the supernatural abilities necessary to fight Andrew Ryan and his army of splicers. With danger lurking around every corner (usually in the form of hulking Big Daddies), this game mixes the horror, adventure, and first person shooter genres while putting a new spin on twisted storytelling and intense game play. There were many excellent titles released in 2007, but even among such juggernauts, Bioshock stands out as the Game of the Year.

I swear, seeing The Orange Box listed at all is fucking stupid. It's a collection of games, not a game itself!

I half expect the people who make these lists to also say, "Metroid is a girl?"

It's really a question of semantics. I don't know exactly where I fall but I understand the arguments for lumping The Orange Box in as one package of gaming goodness, especially since on the console side you can't buy the individual components separately.

I always find GOTY lists kind of pointless, but it's nice to see more than one shoutout for Pac-Man: CE out there.

I can understand wanting HL2 and episode 1 removed from Game of the Year debates, but I kind of think that Orange Box can be judged on the three games together, the development of the games is the same as the development of one game, its just been broken up a bit.

I can understand wanting HL2 and episode 1 removed from Game of the Year debates, but I kind of think that Orange Box can be judged on the three games together, the development of the games is the same as the development of one game, its just been broken up a bit.

Think of it this way. By listing them together instead of separately, there's room for extra games on the list, because Team Fortress 2 and Portal would undoubtedly make most lists regardless.

I really like the top 10 innovations list. "I love the “game” but I’m not even sure if it’s fun" really describes a lot of what I've played in the last year, and my friends give me shit about it. It's nice to know someone in the mainstream thinks like I do.

3. BioShock â€” Best Game About Ayn Rand
As a first-person shooter, BioShock (360) is OK. As an example of how to craft a compelling videogame story, it is priceless. Whether by the sociopolitical questions about objectivism and free will or the heartbreaking relationships of the Little Sisters and Big Daddies, BioShock's world has us fully immersed. The gorgeous art and level design doesn't hurt.

Is the best summary of how I think of it. It's been overhyped to hell, and definately doesn't deserve to be #1, but it does have the best atmosphere this side of stalker and deserves to be on the lists.

Besides that, we have what, 5 games which are going to be on every single list in some order (SMG, halo, Cod4, Orange box), so why not talk about what the other goty's are, rather than just rehashing the same arguements over rankings we've had in the previous award threads. For example, Pac man on 2 lists?

I agree. Orange Box is one game. Whether it is a collection or not a GOTY list has two functions:

To critically acclaim games of good design

To advise people on what are good purchases, like any game review. Orange Box comes as one complete package on every format other than Steam. It should be considered one game. While I would agree, Portal or TF2 on their own would warrant inclusion on a GOTY list, the fact that Valve decided that amazing value just wasnt enough and gave us ludicrously insane good value instead shouldnt exclude Orange Box.

I mean, I can acknowledge how amazing it is, and while its not as innovative as people think (portal games, exactly like Portal have been around for a while. Heck, the teams previous work Narbacular Drop was out for years) it is a great experience. Id put more stock in the writing for Portal than the game design.

TF2 has lasting appeal though. Its the first PC shooter I have really enjoyed this much for a long time. A. Long. Time. Plus, judging from the new Fifa pro street and tiberium fps design it is influencing future games a fair amount more than Portal has.

These three together or separate? I think even with HL2 and episode 1 removed it would still be a strong contender, hell Portal on its own is a Game of the Year in my mind.

Seperate. My complaint isn't that it doesn't deserve to be on any lists, it's that it shouldn't even be a contender because it's not a video game, it's a collection of video games.

Halo 3 single player and halo 3 multiplayer should also be separate games, then.

Halo 3 single player and Halo 3 multiplayer aren't video games, Halo 3 is a video game. Do you see what I'm saying? I mean these lists, in my opinion, shouldn't be what Scarab said - the best purchases of the year. It's "game of the year". The games in The Orange Box are entirely different products except for H-L2 and the 2 episodes.

These three together or separate? I think even with HL2 and episode 1 removed it would still be a strong contender, hell Portal on its own is a Game of the Year in my mind.

Seperate. My complaint isn't that it doesn't deserve to be on any lists, it's that it shouldn't even be a contender because it's not a video game, it's a collection of video games.

Halo 3 single player and halo 3 multiplayer should also be separate games, then.

Halo 3 single player and Halo 3 multiplayer aren't video games, Halo 3 is a video game. Do you see what I'm saying? I mean these lists, in my opinion, shouldn't be what Scarab said - the best purchases of the year. It's "game of the year". The games in The Orange Box are entirely different products except for H-L2 and the 2 episodes.

It's not a rank list, though. It got beat by CoD4 and BioShock (though how BioShock can be the best game of the year period and still not be best shooter is beyond me), two excellent games. If this list showed their top 3 from each category then I'm sure you'd see more Halo.

Halo 3 shows yet again how games are becoming more like movies. There are games that are blockbusters, and games that are critically acclaimed, and they're not always the same games.

Love it or hate it, the Assassinâ€™s Creed controller is something different, not only practically but conceptually. Thinking of the controller not as â€œan agglomeration of buttons that serve to convey mechanical commandsâ€ but rather as â€œan extension of the playerâ€™s very beingâ€ is a sea change.

A game with a command you never, ever need to use mapped to the left trigger? (Low-profile mode is default, anyway)

A game with a "Feet" button?

I mean, I enjoyed it. But come on. "An extension of the player's very being?" A goddamn "sea change?"

That's because the list only includes exciting new games instead of boring rehashes. It might make some list somewhere if there weren't three better FPS launched this half of the year.

Hell, what surprises me the most on some of these lists is the fact that Bioshock managed to crawl out of the summer and be remembered after the absolute tidal wave of good titles in Q4. My personal game of the year wouldn't be Bioshock, but I can at least understand why some people might go that way.

That's because the list only includes exciting new games instead of boring rehashes. It might make some list somewhere if there weren't three better FPS launched this half of the year.

Hell, what surprises me the most on some of these lists is the fact that Bioshock managed to crawl out of the summer and be remembered after the absolute tidal wave of good titles in Q4. My personal game of the year wouldn't be Bioshock, but I can at least understand why some people might go that way.

My pet theory is that bioshock is so overated because it came out so much earlier. None of the other GoTY contenders were out yet, so there was nothing to measure it against, so way too many people gave it unrealistically high ratings (10s). Then come mid-november, everything else came out and they didn't have enough time to give all the other games, so they might have only played half of the other AAA games, and thus didn't have a chance to give them the attention bioshock recived. That's why it way too premature to start crowning Goty at this point